vklog

When flying I always love to have an empty seat next to me - even better the entire row. Ryanair, however, isn’t know to be generous. But by exploiting an interesting peculiarity of their seat allocation algorithm you are able to increase the chances of having more space on your next Ryanair flight.

Most seats on Ryanair are automatically allocated when the passenger checks in. Funnily the seats of row 31 and 32 are allocated as the very last seats. Thus, if the flight isn’t fully booked, the seats of row 31 and 32 are the most likely to stay empty.

To get one of those seats you can either buy it, checkin only shortly before the deadline or just board the plane as the last person. Checking in just shortly before the 2 hour deadline should yield the best results as it reduces the likelihood that someone else is allocated to next to the potentially last empty seat. Anyhow, you can always try you look by boarding last from the rear door.

I have posted 116 photos and videos to Instagram till writing this post. Not tremendously much but still enough to potentially see some interesting patterns or trends in my Instagram usage. I am using Python pandas in a Jupyter notebook with matplotlib to visualise the data. You can get the code on Github.

I am using the parts of the Instagram API that doesn’t require authentication. I’d have liked to use the endpoints that provide a more rich dataset (e.g. geo coordinates, detailed info about every like etc.). However, Instagram’s new API terms make it difficult - if not impossible - to gain full access to the API endpoints with authentication for projects like this. They require an app review if one wants to pull info for more than 20 posts.

So… let’s see how my Instagram usage has been since I joined the network. That is a bit funny. In May 2012 I posted two photos. Then I stayed quite for 3 years.